Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Looking For Normal

Post-election in Ukraine, with a new, duly
elected president whose firm conviction remains that he will not
negotiate with the criminal element that has taken Ukraine's Donbass
region hostage to their demands of secession to become part of the
Russian federation, the million people living in Donetsk are re-living
their fear and trepidation. During the night, secessionist elements
torched a hockey arena, challenging the fire department to put out the
night blaze.

Four monitors
representing the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe -- a
Dane, an Estonian, a Turk and a Swiss -- are missing. They had
approached a road checkpoint near Donetsk on Monday, and have not been
seen nor heard from, since. Seven OSCE monitors had previously been held
for eight days earlier in the month by pro-Moscow thugs.

"We
warned Russia and we warned the international community that the
elections on the 25th of May would not change the situation. Poroshenko
is again coming to us for more bloodshed."Pavel Gubarev, Donetsk separatist leader

President-elect
Petro Proshenko, elected in a landslide vote, promised to directly
confront "a bandit state", threatening to transform Ukraine into
"Somalia". Turning words to action he sent attack jets, assault
helicopters and commandos to retake the Donetsk airport from heavily
armed separatists. Spurning, in effect, Russian President Vladimir
Putin's warning that the government refrain from military assaults
against the Russian-speaking rebels.

Ukrainian helicopter
gunships mounted an attack on the rebel-held international airport
terminal at Donetsk on Monday. Photograph: Yannis Behrakis/Reuters

Government
troops did eventually retake possession of the airport, even as the
control tower burned. Journalists reported wild clashes resulting in the
airport's ultra-modern glass, metal and wood terminal were shot up in a
fierce gunstorm. The result was the death of 50 rebels. Ukrainian
helicopters and gunships strafed the rebels from the air while
paratroopers were sent in to root out the rebels.

Pro-Russia militia men arrive to take positions outside an airport, in Donetsk, Ukraine, on May 26. (Photo: Max Vetrov, AP)A truck used to convey fighters sat on the airport highway, torn
apart by machinegun fire, with blood sprayed on the road and splatted
on a billboard high above the road. "The airport is completely under control. The adversary suffered heavy losses. We have no losses", stated Interior Minister Arsen Avakov. "We'll continue the anti-terrorist operation until not a single terrorist remains on the territory of Ukraine", said First Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Yarema.
The
insurrectionists appear to have deliberately staged the assault in an
effort to bring the Kremlin back into the immediate equation. In
response to Vladimir Putin's declaration his government planned to
recognize Mr. Poroshenko's victory and to "co-operate with him".
President-elect Poroshenko has stated that he knows Putin well from his
years of conducting business in Russia; he hoped to meet with him to
discuss a mutually acceptable way of halting the crisis.

A
crisis wholly owned by Moscow for ordering the presence of 40,000
Russian troops on Ukraine's eastern border, to the fiercely belligerent
hyperbole that resulted, leading to limited sanctions against Russian
interests by the governments of Canada, the U.S. and the European Union,
as a means of disciplining Moscow for its intransigent aggression
against Ukraine.

Without Moscow's intervention
in Ukraine, its exploitation of the Donbass region's general
dissatisfaction with the current management of their geography by the
central government, and provocations meant to heighten that sense of
disaffection, leading to the rise of pro-Russian thugs and henchmen of
the Kremlin, the current situation would never have come to a head, as
it did, with the loss of Crimea, the loss of lives and threatened
further loss of territory.

Some things appear to have
changed, possibly with the growing realization in Moscow that there are
insufficient numbers of people among the millions in the Donbass region
dedicated to leaving Ukraine; their numbers were clearly overestimated
in the campaign to forge an overwhelming contingent of supporters of
secession and annexation by Russia.

Perhaps the
sobering realization that Russia must now expend billions it can
scarcely spare given its economic downturn, on securing Crimea has made
its impact. Temporary financial hardships imposed on the cronies of Mr.
Putin may be viewed as an irritant to be toughed out, but the turn that
Vladimir Putin's devious mind will next think of can never be
anticipated to prepare for a usefully swift reaction.

What
seems abundantly clear, however, is that a large number of eastern
Ukrainians have been less than impressed by the thuggish violence
perpetrated upon their region by the separatists claiming to be acting
in Moscow's name. They appear far more prepared to live with the renewed
promises from Kyiv to grant them greater autonomy.

This represents a general opinion site for its author. It also offers a space for the author to record her experiences and perceptions,both personal and public. This is rendered obvious by the content contained in the blog, but the space is here inviting me to write. And so I do.